News

Google Tests Search Suggestions

By Nate Mook | Published December 10, 2004, 11:28 AM

In its never-ending quest to one-up search competitors, Google is beta testing a new featured called Google Suggest, which guesses what users are typing and offers suggestions. Google Suggest is the latest development to come out of Google Labs, a testing ground for the company's new search technologies.

Google Suggest pops up a menu below the search bar as letters are typed, much like auto-complete features found in modern browsers. Instead of basing suggestions on a user's search history, however, Google recommends queries based on popularity and even displays the number of results directly in the menu. Google Suggest works with most browsers using JavaScript and cookies.

Comments

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amitpagarwal
Dec 13, 2004 - 12:50 AM

This is the most innovative idea.

So Google has done it again. The only search engine with Autocomplete feature.

Amit
http://labnol.blogspot.com

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mnadi
Dec 11, 2004 - 8:20 AM

Very well done, I really admire the creativity of Google's R & D team. This useful feature is sure to become one of Google's differentiators against competition.

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Couscous
Dec 10, 2004 - 3:20 PM

I just tried this thing out and I like it. It's set as my Homepage now. Some of the results it shows are pretty interesting. There are a lot more bored people typing nonsense into Google than I first thought..

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milenix
Dec 11, 2004 - 7:18 AM

In fact, I was searching for a football sport store the whole day before learning about Google Suggest without any success. Then, I decided to test it exactly with this search and it offered me very good suggestion, which led to very good results.

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amitpagarwal
Dec 13, 2004 - 12:52 AM

I guess once the Suggest beta is a success, Google may make it a default feature itself.

Amit
http://labnol.blogspot.com

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